Barcode Scanner for Treo600 using built in camera?

**greenlion** · 01/20/2004, 11:09 AM

Wired news has an interesting article about using the camera in camera phones as a barcode scanner. Anyone doing such a thing with the T600?

Here is the article

http://www.wired.com/news/infostruct...,61936,00.html

**Gaurav** · 01/27/2004, 10:23 PM

WOW! I would love to see something like this for the Treo600!

However, from what I understand, most of these apps utilize the "Optical Intelligence" algorithmns on the main servers and not the phones themselves. Thus you use a camera phone to take an image of a barcode and then send via wireless to servers that analyse and automatically send you back relevant info? I would be curious to know if there are any app that perform the OI tasks natively on the Treo proc itself? Is the OMAP even powerful enough to do this? I asked this same query previously in another thread but got no resonses. Also, solutions like Grabba are just to bulky IMO...

**meyerweb** · 01/27/2004, 11:15 PM

Originally posted by gfunkmagic
WOW! However, from what I understand, most of these apps utilize the "Optical Intelligence" algorithmns on the main servers and not the phones themselves. Thus you use a camera phone to take an image of a barcode and then send via wireless to servers that analyse and automatically send you back relevant info?

Some devices may work this way, but I suspect that's more to access a database that holds information about the product: stock quantity, order status, etc. There certainly are handheld devices which can read and interperate the bar code internally, however. Symbol Technology makes several. And some of them are based on pocket PC devices, so it should be possible to do the same thing in a Palm.

I wonder if the built in camera really has the resolution to do this, however.

**JFMw** · 06/13/2005, 11:09 AM

Originally Posted by meyerweb

I wonder if the built in camera really has the resolution to do this, however.

This is definitely possible, available soon (and free!).
http://treoware.free.fr/barcode_screenshot.jpg
Barcode/13 for Treo600 and Treo650.

Regards, Jean-Francois.

**Gaurav** · 06/14/2005, 05:12 AM

Originally Posted by JFMw

This is definitely possible, available soon (and free!).
http://treoware.free.fr/barcode_screenshot.jpg
Barcode/13 for Treo600 and Treo650.

Regards, Jean-Francois.

WOW! That is very cool!

So let me get this straight? With this app, you could hypothetically go into any store, take a pic of the UPC of any product, and use the UPC value to look up via the web an info about that product like comparative shopping, nutrition, specs etc?!!!!

That would be awesome!

**JFMw** · 06/14/2005, 07:01 AM

Originally Posted by gfunkmagic

WOW! That is very cool!

So let me get this straight? With this app, you could hypothetically go into any store, take a pic of the UPC of any product, and use the UPC value to look up via the web an info about that product like comparative shopping, nutrition, specs etc?!!!!

That would be awesome!

That would require a specific application (connected to Barcode/13 that will read and return barcodes) to perform the information lookup into a proper online database with such information, but this can be done. For example, you can search for EAN #5099750473528 and find the author and album name of this CD:

<html><body><form method="post" action="http://s1.amazon.fr/exec/varzea/sdp/sai-condition"><input type="text" name="sdp-sai-asin" value=""><input type="submit"></form></body></html>

This is just an example for 'human' to test, but if we consider Amazon it would let you retrieve data (including covers) for a CD and Amazon's price. Could be interesting if you're interest in buying a new CD and want to check Amazon's price

In fact Amazon provides a more powerful search feature that would reply for this album...

<ASIN>B000025ELT</ASIN>
<Artist>Jean-Jacques Goldman</Artist>
<ProductGroup>Music</ProductGroup>
<Title>En Passant</Title>

... and you can get the 50x50 cover:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...8.THUMBZZZ.jpg

Hardware scanners are expensive, releasing an application based on hardware scanners would interest few users.The missing part was a simple and free barcode scanner: that's now possible with Barcode/13, and then we can hope that more developers will be interested by barcode enabled applications.

Cheers, Jean-Francois.

**rizwankassim** · 06/14/2005, 07:38 AM

I don't think I can explain how excited I am about this.

Any chance it'll read ISBNs? (Or are those UPC encoded already?)

**JFMw** · 06/14/2005, 08:07 AM

Originally Posted by rizwankassim

I don't think I can explain how excited I am about this.

Any chance it'll read ISBNs? (Or are those UPC encoded already?)

ISBN are EAN-13 codes with leading 978 in fact...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...bosnation0e-20

However checksum are different, but it's not a big point (this is silly, people should have chosen a prefix and a checksum method so that this checksum would have been the same for ISBN and EAN-13 format, anyway...).
http://www.isbn.org/converterret.asp

Cheers, Jean-Francois.

**Gaurav** · 06/14/2005, 05:25 PM

Originally Posted by JFMw

That would require a specific application (connected to Barcode/13 that will read and return barcodes) to perform the information lookup into a proper online database with such information, but this can be done. For example, you can search for EAN #5099750473528 and find the author and album name of this CD:

<html><body><form method="post" action="http://s1.amazon.fr/exec/varzea/sdp/sai-condition"><input type="text" name="sdp-sai-asin" value=""><input type="submit"></form></body></html>

This is just an example for 'human' to test, but if we consider Amazon it would let you retrieve data (including covers) for a CD and Amazon's price. Could be interesting if you're interest in buying a new CD and want to check Amazon's price

In fact Amazon provides a more powerful search feature that would reply for this album...

<ASIN>B000025ELT</ASIN>
<Artist>Jean-Jacques Goldman</Artist>
<ProductGroup>Music</ProductGroup>
<Title>En Passant</Title>

... and you can get the 50x50 cover:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...8.THUMBZZZ.jpg

Hardware scanners are expensive, releasing an application based on hardware scanners would interest few users.The missing part was a simple and free barcode scanner: that's now possible with Barcode/13, and then we can hope that more developers will be interested by barcode enabled applications.

Cheers, Jean-Francois.

Awesome! If an integrated solution can be developed, I think you guys would have a killer application!!

Btw, you guys at Treoware have some pretty cool apps!

**ebeale** · 06/16/2005, 10:16 PM

Using my iSight with Delicious Library or Booxter to catalog my books, movies, and CDs right now. You just point the cam at the bar code, and the app finds the number on the web and inports all the information, including a picture of the cover. Magic.

I can see adding this to my Treo in several apps, including SplashShopper (scan your groceries as you get them off the shelf or finish them at home, the database updates your quantity on hand).

**JFMw** · 06/17/2005, 03:04 AM

Originally Posted by ebeale

Using my iSight with Delicious Library or Booxter to catalog my books, movies, and CDs right now. You just point the cam at the bar code, and the app finds the number on the web and inports all the information, including a picture of the cover. Magic.

I can see adding this to my Treo in several apps, including SplashShopper (scan your groceries as you get them off the shelf or finish them at home, the database updates your quantity on hand).

Well, now it's in developers' hands: detecting and calling Barcode/13 is very easy (and all is detailled in the tutorial, last section), all they have to do is to add about 10 lines and a button to display when Barcode/13 is present. HandyShopper is freeware, it can use Barcode/13 for free (shareware applications like SplashShopper can also use Barcode/13 but would have to pay a small registration fee, not that I want to make money with Barcode/13 but that I don't see why other people would make money with my work).

Now, if you want to see Barcode/13 integrated in your prefered application, I guess the best way is to send a request for this to the support of your application. If enough users are sending such a request, I think they could take these requests into account...

Regards, Jean-Francois.

**noisygecko** · 06/17/2005, 03:45 PM

I have tried Barcode/13 and it is very cool software. But... On my Treo 600 it has been very hard to get a picture good enough for it to decode the barcode. If the light level is very high and I hold the item very still and put it in the frame exactly right, it seems to work.

I just tried it with another item in very high light conditions and it took about 3 tries before it came up with the wrong scan number. Then I tried a couple of more times and it seem to get the correct number most of the time.

If the number is under the barcode, it would probably be easier just to type it in most of the time. If the number isn't there, then I would want to scan it several times to make sure the decoded value is correct. I have gotten the wrong decoded number a few times that I have tried this out.

Does Barcode/13 work better on the Treo 650?

-Sim

**Webby** · 06/17/2005, 08:58 PM

Barcode13 works with the Treo 650. Works pretty good too, but how do we find the clipboard on the Treo 650? I have Barcode13 on my treo 650 and I can't find the clipboard where all the barcodes I scanned are stored.

**JFMw** · 06/18/2005, 04:17 AM

Originally Posted by Webby

Barcode13 works with the Treo 650. Works pretty good too, but how do we find the clipboard on the Treo 650? I have Barcode13 on my treo 650 and I can't find the clipboard where all the barcodes I scanned are stored.

For example launch the Memo application, create a new memo, open menu and select paste in the edit menu. That will copy your barcode in your memo. This cut/copy/paste is the system clipboard, any application might let you paste a scanned parcode into text fields. Of course, if an application is integrated with Barcode/13 the developer might automatically retrieve the clipboard content without requiring the user to do it manually. I've chosen clipboard exchange with other applications because it is the most standard solution, and a very easy one (developers would have to write only 1 line to read the barcode from the clipboard, I can't find easier!).

Cheers, Jean-Francois.

**alokeprasad** · 06/18/2005, 07:57 AM

Which is the best database software that can use barcode information (and an on-line access, I suppose)?

I want to start logging my CD's and books. It would be nice not to have to type in all the information.

I guess I'm looking for a PC/Treo equivalent of that software for the mac's ...

**lulugirl896#WN** · 06/18/2005, 08:22 AM

I'd love to see it as a plugin for SmartList to go. They have the SDK kit right on their website!

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